The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1887-12-02
THE PEANUTS USES.
Divers Ways in Which 1t Proves Itself
Friend of Mankind


old and eyer-blooming chestnut, yet
he is equally at home in the Fifth ave-
nue. palace as he is in the tenement on
the Bend, and is equally loved and re-
spected in both, although he is often
sugared in the more fashionable quar-
ter.
No one for a moment would suspect
it, but really 'tthere's millions in it. !"
Not only does the peanut afford COM
Portable living for thousands of gentle
men who quit sunny Italy for Italy's
good, to bloom out as merchants at the
street corners of Gotham, but it aids in
giving employment to other thousands
on three continents-Europe, Africa
and America.
From Virginia southwark to the Gull
of Mexico it grows in great abundance,
and millions of bushels are dug up an
nually to provide strength for people
who attend the circus and are COM
PEELED to listen to the ancient Jokes OF
the clown. When Jack Frost first
makes himself acquainted with the
beautiful autumn then the peanut far
mer is in his glory. He HES himself at
early dawn to the field armed with a
pronged hoe and digs up the modest
peanut For the peanut is modest and
hides from the vulgar gaze. Indeed it
is peculiarly of this nut to push its
pods into instead of out of the ground.
Hence it requires digging to obtain the
crop. The farmer with his pronged
hoe pulls out the vine with the peanuts
attached, and leaves them on the
ground for two or three days to dry.
Then he removes them to shed, where
they quietly rest for two weeks. The
nuts are then picked from the vine and
are ready for the tanning mill.
One hundred bushels to the acre is a
fair estimate. and good peanuts are
worth one dollar bushel. If man
dred-acre farm he can have a great
quantity of peanuts, which when ex-
changed for dollars, even trade dollars,
will net him a handsome return for his
outlay and labor.
Virginia, the ''mother of Presidents, "
may be also called the mother of Amer
lean peanuts. That State alone fur
nishes OVERTIME million bushels. The
Carolinas send their quota, and so does
Tennessee, though the peanuts from
the latter State are not as white as those
of the other Southern States, and hence
not as high priced.
The nuts are sent to the peanut fac
tory, as callow youths are sent to col
lege, to be busted, coming out as white
as snow-not Broadway snow, but just
common everyday snow. The farmers
used to do the busting and polishing at
home, but now they find it cheaper to
send the peanuts to the peanut fac
tory"
AT Norfolk, Va, there are nine of
these factories, where million bush
els-often more-of the nuts are
cleaned, polished and sorted by colored
women.
OF course, all the peanuts are not
large and handsome. Those with only
one kernel are placed in the shelter.
which quickly removes the "overcoat,
and the lonely peanut slips through to
find lots of company in the separator
below, which sorts them into three
sizes: extra large No. II and ''No.
q" Then the nuts are packed up, sent
North and 90 into the hands of the
confectioner, the man who gives his
customers taffy.
A better fate awaits the big healthy
peanut, the autocrat, so to speak. 1t
comes out of the tanning mill white
and 'pretty as a picture" with the
shell unbroken. These are sent North
also and become the stock in trade of
the street-vender and the corner spec
ulator." They buy the peanuts for
81 cents a pound. The roasting, when
they do not do it themselves, costs
them ] cent a pound. The loss in the
process of roasting is 10 per cent, and
the CHEEKY peanut comes up smiling in
the last round at the cost of $1.45 a
bushel. The vender sells them at 10
cents a quart. But his quart is just
little contracted, and he manages to
have forty of them to the bushel in
defiance of all the rules of measure
ment. Thus the nuts cost him 81. 45
bushel. aud he receives 81 bushel, a
clear profit of $3.50.
But let no one think that this fin
ishes the work of the modest peanut.
Its mission has much wider scope.
Not only does it figure on the street
stand, but in another form it often APP
pears on the table of even the best reg
ulated families, as "olive OIL" But
this deceitful and wicked peanut is
not of native growth. 1t is product
of foreign lands.
The peanut yields from forty-two to
fifty per cent. of an oil, almost color
less and nearly equal to olive oil in
taste and quality. This oil is obtained
in various ways, but the best is fur
nished by means of cold compression,
and France is responsible in the main
for it. Marseilles does al enormous
trade in olive oil, but all that is thus
labeled is not olive oil by any means.
Last year ten million bushels of pea.
nuts went into the city in their original
shape and came out in neat bottles as
solve" oil or ''huile d'olive."
This is not all. ''No pent-up Utica
confines the scope of the peanut. The
oil that is extracted is also used in
making toilet soaps. 1t possesses the
quality Of rendering the skin soft and
white. Many an actress who has
given her certificate as to the worth of
some dainty toilet soap would go into
Mysteries if some knowing person
yelled peanuts.
The usefulness of the peanut does
not end here. Its sphere is very ex-
tensive, and the manufacturers of
chocolate know the fact remarkably
we'll. They take the seed of the pea